TRADITIONAL, NOT CONVENTIONAL.

Multivitamins (March 4, 2014)

Several studies late last year found no benefit in the use of multivitamins for the prevention of several common chronic diseases. Actually this should not have surprised anyone, since vitamin supplements for disease are usually taken in much larger quantities than those found in multis. However, this unsurprising bit of information was used as a blast-off point for numerous shrill headlines declaring that "multivitamins are useless and possibly even harmful to you".

Nonsense. No one will die this year from taking multivitamins. And no one died last year from taking them either. One properly formulated multivitamin a day isn't going to do you any harm at all, and none of those studies even suggested such a thing. I have never seen mention of even one published study of any quality whatsoever that has found multivitamins to be risky, and I don't believe that there is one. If anyone knows differently please send me that information and I will eat my hat in my next newsletter.

WebMD has a pretty good online article on choosing a multivitamin. If you want a .pdf from my favorite nutrition magazine with more detailed information on this as well, email me and I'll send it to you. If you do take a multivitamin, follow those basic guidelines on choosing and taking one. It's my personal belief that multivitamins can be of great benefit in supplementing even a good diet (that's why they're called "supplements") and almost everyone can benefit from one.

You may as well get your health information from advertisements as get it from the headlines. If you do, you will be continually confused from hearing something represented as good for you that was supposed to be bad for you a year ago and vice versa, plus you will be guiding your health decisions based on information that was chosen for its ability to stimulate controversy rather than its actual value in keeping and promoting health.